THE TEA TRADE OF INDIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1188, 26 January 1864, Page 5

THE TEA TRADE OF INDIA.

Good tidings from India are no longer so rare as | they once were, but it is scldotu that we can report so decided a step towards prosperity as that described in our last letter from Calcutta. The cultivation of tea has at last got beyond the experimental stage, and is rapidly becoming the foundation of a vast and lucrative trade. The capabilities of India for the growth of tea have long been recognised. It has been known for the last forty years that the plant was indigenous in Assam, and so long ago as 1834, Lord W. Bentinck appointed a committee to inquire into the best means of propagating it over India. It was admitted that the same conditions of soil and climate were to be found in many other districts along the Himalayan range; but then it was equally notorious that cotton was a natural product of India, and might be raised in sufficient quantity and of sufficient quality to compete with that of America in the English market. In neither case did this knowledge, which in Europe would have borne immediate fruit in stimulating enterprise, lead to much practical result. Neither the cultivation of tea nor that of cotton was among the traditions of Leadenhall street. So long as the East India Company held the monopoly of China as well as of India, they had little interest in patronising tea gardens in the Himalayas, since they could get as much tea as they wanted from Canton and sell it at their own prices. Moreover, the encouragement of tea-planting would have involved the introduction of a new class of interlopers and independent colonists, the very last persons with whom the court of directors would have desired to do. Then there were the old difficulties arising out of the land tenure and the waut of native capitalists, the doubt whether such a luxury as tea would ever find a sale among the Hindoos, and the expense of transporting it from the hills to the coast. Moreover, the first experiments which were made in the Neilgherry Hills and Central India, were considered to be failures. Altogether, the Government of India did not feel disposed to bestir itself further in the matter, aud though the recent success of the Assam Tea Company attracted some attention, it was not till after Mr. Fortune's visit to China that model plantations were established in the North and Northwest. These plantations, under the able superintendance of Dr. Jameson, have more than realised the hopes of their promoters, and have now done their work. The possibility of growing tea at a profit on the slopes of the Himalayas, at various points, from Darjeeling to Eawul Pindee, is clearly proved. Private companies, both native and European, have been supplied with seed and seedlings by the Government, which in turn buys the leaves from those who have not yet the skill to dry them, and thousands of fresh acres are yearly covered with the tea plant. So complete lias been the success that the Government is about to retire from the position which it j had temporarily assumed as a proprietor, and to sell its tea nurseries to the highest bidder.

Of all the provinces extending along a line of 1500 miles which have felt the impulse of this great commercial movement, Assam is still the most important. Not only is it nearer to Calcutta, and connected with it by water, but it was the first part of India brought under tea cultivation, and has all the advantages of priority. Assam tea has already a character in the market, and will command a price when tea offered as East Indian might fail to find purchasers. One of the main difficulties had been the great cost of manufacture, owing to a scarcity of labor, but this has been much diminished by a new act facilitating the importation of coolies. We have only to turn to the last reports from the Calcutta share market to appreciate the eagerness with which land is being bought up in Assam and the neighbouring districts. " The favourite investment continues to be in approved tea companies. Central Cachars have been sold at 160r. per share premium for time; Assams at 120 per cent, premium; Cachars, 25 per cent, premium." We are told that "every day new land is being applied for," and that " the 'Gazette' bristles with advertisements of sales." There may be something unsound in this excessive speculation, but the mere fact that the rate of produce multiplies faster than the increase of the area planted with tea goes far to justify it. About Darjeeling. which might be brought within twelve hours of' Calcutta l»y railroad, some 5000 acres yielded nearly 28,000 lbs of tea eighteen months ago. There are now twice as many acres yielding thrice as many pounds. In Assam the total produce amounted to 1,788,000 lbs in 18G1, and must now be much greater. It may not be niore than a thirtieth part of the consumption of this country, but it is a very large quantity for one province out of so many to contribute. Dr. Jameson calculates that if every acre of the tea-bearing tract west of Nepaul were turned to good account, they would produce in the aggregate " 930.000,000 lbs, or equal to the export of all China." As it is, we read of flourishing gardens in parts where even Mr. Fortune was not at first sanguine of success. In the valley of Dehra Doon every available inch will soon be clothed with the tea plant. In Gurwhal, where fifty years ago the laud was going begging, a single plantation has just fetched £10,000. In the Bignath Valley" is one of the finest gardens created,and kept only by prison labour." In the Punjaub the natives are* large consumers as well as producers of tea. 100,000 lbs annually are taken by Umritsir alone, and 1,500,000 lbs are likely to be exported by one proprietor from a single valley.

All this beneficent activity lias been set in motion by «i very small exertion on the part of the Indian Government, and without any mischievous interference with the course of supply and demand. There has been no legislation in favour of tea planters, no bounties, no protection, nothing but the influence of a good example. The Government occupied land and set up factories only to show that tea could be cultivated without undue risk and with a fair prospect of profit, and it is now preparing to leave the manufacture in other hands. Such an initiative violates no sound rule of political economy, and is very different from the encouragement which has been claimed for the growth of cotton—a crop which has been a staple product of India for centuries. The only wonder is that all this was not done long ago. No one can say why it was not, unless because the inveterate prejudice against dealing with India on ordinary principles had conjured up imaginary obstacles and objections. The Carthaginians used to magnify the terrors of the seas which they traversed, and the distant regions which they penetrated, lest rival nations should step in and share the benefit of their discoveries. A spirit not very unlike this seems to have once prevailed at the Indian House, and thus the interior of India remained almost a terra incognita, except to soldiers, civilians, and a few indigo-planters. For some years past we have been slowly undoing the results of this policy, and learning to believe that moral and economical laws operate in India very much as they do elsewhere. Compared witli the radical change in our views of Indian government which has thus been produced, even the great works which are opening up the heart of the country to commerce are subordinate and secondary, liiver beds would have been embanked, and good roads, if not railways, been made in past times had India then been governed in the interest of the natives, or even of the English people. Now that we have discovered these interests to be identical, and distinct from those to which the progress of India was formerly sacrificed, we shall perhaps cease to attribute its tardy development, to the immobility of the Hindoo character— Times.